Phuket restaurants put fine dining on the Thai island’s map

The Thai island of Phuket is earning a reputation as a foodie heaven. Here’s where to go and what to eat.

Dining in paradise

At 3.45am, slumber is rudely interrupted by the sound of a wind-borne market umbrella crashing into the bedroom window, subsequently coming to rest in our private pool at Iniala Beach House in mainland Thailand’s Phang Nga province, just north of the island of Phuket.

First World problems.

It doesn’t matter. Our alarm is set for 4am so we can hit the docks in Phuket Town, where the boats that call the island home come in with their bounty. So while a howling, rain-driven westerly comes across the Andaman Sea, 60km south, on the calm eastern side of the island, it feels a million miles from the luxury of Iniala. In many different ways.

At 5.30am, the market is alive with perhaps 100 women, crouching on cement platforms, sorting a catch that will find its way to the myriad eateries across the island. Men in brightly coloured ponchos do the grunt work of moving great plastic barrels of fish and ice from the boats to the sorting floor. ­Others appear to be buyers. Vans arrive. The day’s commerce has begun.

Clearly, there is a huge variety of restaurant food available on this substantial island. It ranges from Muslim Thai roti shops where lunch for two costs $4 to high-end places such as Aziamendi.

As a tourism hub, Phuket has a large population of Thais from other parts of the kingdom, on top of its own population of nearly 400,000, a significant expat community and, at any given moment, thousands of international visitors.

They all need feeding. Expat chefs, seduced by the climate — or a local partner — have settled here to become Phuket residents, not merely travelling cooks on a world journey.

Most are in the hotels and resorts, but stand-alone restaurants are flourishing. You can get tricked-up Italian at the likes of Aqua, in Patong Kalim, where Sardinian chef Alessandro Frau does his thing (a good place to know if you suddenly have cravings for Italian wine and can afford to indulge them). Or modern Euro cuisine at Bampot, in Cherngtalay, a favourite with Western expats in Phuket and where chef Jamie Wakeford, a Scot, has built a loyal following and justifiable reputation. And if you need to immerse yourself even further in make-believe-land, Siam Supper Club does its best to replicate a New York Jazz club, dirty martinis and all. It has style.

It’s a favourite of Inialia’s chief executive Danny Drinkwater, a former executive chef at Park Hyatt Sydney who was lured to Bali for five years and has been in Phuket for four. He says that, as a food person, the island is an exciting place to live.

“Phuket Town itself is one of the most interesting places for me,” he says, “and it’s not a tourist hotspot. It’s very traditional and a really busy centre for daily working life. Classic historic buildings from the Portuguese era, hole-in-the-wall noodle shops, local restaurants featuring southern Thai and Chinese and Thai speciality restaurants that are really, really good and great value.” (See breakout)

There are thousands of places where you can eat in Phuket. Here are a few we would recommend. But remember, Phuket is a large island: at 539sq km, its roughly the size of Singapore.

Aziamendi

Tropical franchise of Basque chef Eneko Atxa’s wildly acclaimed Azurmendi in Larrabetzu, Spain, this coastal jewel would have to rank as one of the great surprises of Thailand. What an unlikely place to find cutting-edge gastronomy and this level of refinement. In our opinion, the food here eclipses Asia’s No 1 restaurant (Gaggan, in Bangkok) by a considerable degree in terms of both inspiration and realisation. Oh, and the satisfaction it delivers over 14 amazing small courses. The new head chef at this restaurant, attached to the mind-bending Iniala Beach House, is Filipino-American Aisha Ibrahim, who at 24 rebooted her cooking career by going back to basics at Japan’s Nihonryori RyuGin, later working as sous chef at Manresa, San Francisco, which has just scored a third Michelin star. “Tokyo completely changed the way I now think and emotionally connect with food,” she says. aziamendi.com

Nahmyaa

Undoubtedly buoyed by the ongoing success of Nahm at its Bangkok hotel, the Metropolitan, Como Hotels went with a refined and defiantly Thai restaurant as its signature dining room for the newish Phuket hotel Point Yamu. Such a good decision. Executive chef for the hotel is Australian Liam O’Brien, who spent much of his childhood in Thailand and is married to a Thai. But it is his deputy, Thirawut Na-Udom, who is responsible for cooking at Nahmyaa. Thirawut, a northerner from the Issan region, has several culinary degrees from Bangkok and has worked in the Gulf for many years. His food reflects the breadth and power of Thai cuisine, but also an elegance found only in high-end places. In the seven times I’ve eaten here, not a dud has come out of the kitchen, but as exemplars of southern Thai cuisine, Nahmyaa’s Wagyu beef-tail soup with baby potatoes, tomatoes and fried shallots, and a coconut/turmeric curry of local crab with young ginger and peppercorns will live in my memory a long time. Some of the best Thai food I’ve experienced, anywhere.
comohotels.com/pointyamu

Bampot

On an island where the upscale restaurant market is dominated by places attached to hotels, ­resorts or clubs of some kind, independent European restaurants are rare. When you find them, they’re usually run by former hotel chefs gone solo, and such is the case at Bampot where Scottish expat Jamie Wakeford runs a breezy, informal bar/bistro that would seem familiar in any inner-city location. He is ex-Maze London, and the cuisine is suggestive of that rugged European bistro style. Beef cheeks with a blue cheese mash or cauliflower and truffle risotto may sound a bit odd on a tropical island, but even the most dedicated follower of Thai culinary fashion will need a break from shrimp paste, chilli and garlic. Popular with expats; wine, as anywhere in Thailand, is the cruncher when a bill arrives.

bampot.co

Bang Pae Seafood

Bang Pae Seafood is the kind of place every foodie dreams about finding. Being at the end of a road that ends at the water — a tidal, mangrove-like cove — you will have to find it. It is utilitarian, but not unpleasantly so. It is friendly. It is by the water, albeit not your postcard location. And it is the real deal: the food is particularly good, uncompromised, and targets locals. The prices, therefore, are fantastic.

Phuket has a diverse cultural makeup, and that’s reflected in the food. A curry of blue swimmer crab, for example, made with coconut and a dried spice curry powder instead of a paste, will remind you more of southern Indian food.

But whether it’s a standard, such as deep-fried fish (it looks like a barramundi but, frankly, who knows what it is?) with a sweet chilli and fresh tomato sauce, or something we’d never tried before, a salad of finely sliced young lemongrass, toasted coconut, cashew and fresh scud chilli as well as roasted whole chilli, all eaten in betel leaves and totally memorable, the standard here is wicked.

Other suggestions: a stir fry of something such as a spinach with dried shrimps and a heap of whole, blanched garlic; and prawns in a tamarind sauce with oodles of fried garlic; and steamed cockles, served with typically dense dressing of lime, garlic, chilli and fish sauce and who knows what else. A complete gem.

Pa Khlok, Thalang, Phuket [phone]

Ko Benz

A seriously local joint in Phuket Town, this place opens only at night (operating into the small hours) and serves just seven dishes. Kao lao lued moo anyone? It’s a soup of pork intestines and blood. One for the adventurer.

Talat Nuea, Mueang Phuket District, Phuket

Krua Pailin Phuket Food

Phuket food is heavily influenced by Chinese immigration. With lots of local seafood, a lot of fresh chilli, coconut milk and shrimp paste, Krua Pailin, also known as Pailin’s Kitchen, offers a glimpse of real Phuket food less reflective of those milder Chinese preferences that have crept in over the centuries. There are many dishes here you won’t see elsewhere, including the excellent pu phad manao, or crabmeat in lime sauce.

Kathu, Kathu District, Phuket

Tu Kab Khao

To the uninitiated, Old Phuket Town’s legacy of Portuguese colonial architecture may come as a (pleasant) surprise. “Outstanding among the many excellent choices” is how former airline pilot and Aussie expat in Phuket Daryl Davies rates Tu Kab Khao. His Thai wife, Nattaya, agrees. “It offers quite exceptional Thai food with a distinctly old-Phuket touch in a magnificent old colonial building,” says the wine buff. “The front of house, unusually for Phuket, is outstanding. The maitre d’ is an urbane, experienced and very engaging fella and the staff are the equal of the best we see in Australia. An all-round wonderful dining experience in a charming environment with a terrific buzz. Pretty much my favourite on the island.”

8 Phang Nga Road, Talat Yai, Muang, Phuket

Ang Seafood

Unpretentious, to say the least, this place has a reputation as serving Phuket’s best seafood. It is also, apparently, one of the island’s oldest seafood restaurants. There’s nothing fancy: tabletops are stainless steel, the kitchen is at the front of the restaurant (diners need to work their way through to find a table at the back) and the action is hectic. All the seafood is wild, not farmed.

Sapan Hin, opposite the Bang Niew Chinese Shrine, Phuket City

TO MARKET, TO MARKET

Many tourists visit Phuket without actually getting to Phuket Town. Don’t make that mistake. The local food market, particularly the wet market, is an artery that goes straight to the heart of a community: a divining rod for the local food culture. Talad Kaset is a great experience for any food nut — raw, real and heaps of fun.

Go early in the morning, before it gets too hot, when all the fresh seafood has come from the town’s docks, where boats have come in at 3am to have their haul sorted and bought. The market actually opens at 2am, but we’d recommend being there around 7am when things are in full swing. But give yourself at least an hour: Talad Kaset is the complete Thai food market catastrophe.

You will find every conceivable piece of fresh chicken and pig, skinned frogs, mighty piles of different shrimp pastes, live birds, whole fish, dried fish, butchered fish, fried fish, shellfish, live eels and frogs, live tortoises, crabs, quail, herbs, fruit and vegies of mysterious identity, plus a stall devoted to the production of fresh coconut cream with a massive machine.

Some of it ain’t pretty; the faces of the vendors, however, will put a song in your heart.

And, of course, you can eat at the market, too. Inside there are plenty of local breakfast options, both sit-down street food stalls and takeaway stalls.

Many of the market vendors are Muslim and the foods reflect that, plus the southern nature of the island. On offer are the likes of roti served with curry sauce on the side and a filling of egg; sticky rice with coconut cream and jackfruit; khao tom mad, banana and black beans sprinkled with sticky rice and coconut milk, steamed.

Gird your loins and have a go. And if you happen to be self-catering on your Thai visit, shop till you drop, spend very little, and go home and cook like David Thompson.

Thanon Ong Sim Phai, Mueang Phuket, Phuket, Thailand

- John Lethlean

The author was flown to Thailand by Tourism Thailand and was a guest at Iniala Beach House.